Again, why are we breaking news on a Friday if it's 'significant'? Everyone knows that Friday afternoons are reserved for stuff we want headlines on but no real in-depth coverage. Most reporters have already head home for the weekend.
​​
The indictment can be downloaded here and reads:

From in or around 2014 to the present, Defendants knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other (and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury) to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.

Unfortunately, No one will actually read the indictment and compare it to what Already Occurs in every election.

There's no value in doing so. Must keep the Left/Right arguing with each other at all costs. Leftists will claim "It is definitely starting to look like we have an illegitimate president" and Righties will proclaim 'Fake news!"
​
As an Intelligence Officer, I will tell you that election influence operations are the norm. It would actually be highly exceptional if an election wasn't being influenced by outside countries, non-profits, and donations. This only occurs in certain non-descript countries of zero geopolitical value which are few and far between.
​

​Here are the charges:

INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY, LLC was created as a 'software agency'.

INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY, LLC received funding from a Russian.

INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY, LLC operated social media pages and groups designed to attract U.S. audiences.

Social media pages posted divisive political and social issues.

Some 'defendants' traveled to the US under false pretenses (working in a software company).

INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY, LLC posted derogatory information 'about a number of candidates' and 'disparaged Hillary Clinton'.

INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY, LLC bought political ads on social media.

Some defendants 'posed as US persons and communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign' hoping to coordinate political activities (they are not being charged with being successful, just trying).

Defendants are charged with "making expenditures in connection with the 20167 U.S. presidential election without proper regulatory disclosure".

Additionally, bringing charges against foreign nationals is of no-value in the real world. Russia isn't going to find these defendants and ship them over. Quite the opposite, they're probably getting medals. Russia sincerely believed Hillary would go to war with them. Her record is clear on Russia

So we're not going to actually take the Russians to court, but by indicting them, Mueller can continue the narrative that this election was "different" or "illegitimate" or even "Hillary should have won" (which no one actually believes).
​

Who knows. Maybe it's a new world.

Maybe these Russians are all 'guilty' and now 'election influence' is no longer going to be part of our status quo. Not likely, but if so, will you hold the U.S. federal government to these same standards when we meddle in others' elections? Why or why not? How is it different?

Only in America could the mainstream media call those who want strengthened borders "Racists" and "Xenophobes" while those who are here illegally are referred to as "Dreamers".

If you aren't real sure why the courts keep blocking the Trump Administration's attempts to shut down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, let me catch you up.

The entire DACA debate in a nutshell - It's not that the courts believe the Trump Administration can'tend the program. The courts believe the administration does have this right, this ability. The courts just want to make sure there's a good reason behind it.

As if, the executive branch has to all-of-a-sudden provide justification in form of a White Paper, hand-deliver this to the judicial branch and wait around for permission to be given. Just as the Framer's intended.

No, this is not one of those 'checks and balances' we learned about in 5th grade Civics class.

"Defendants indisputably can end the DACA program," Garaufis wrote, referring to the Trump administration. "The question before the court is thus not whether defendants could end the DACA program, but whether they offered legally adequate reasons for doing so. Based on its review of the record before it, the court concludes that defendants have not done so."

The judge goes on to cite a "recurring, redundant drumbeat of anti-Latino commentary".

To be fair, Trump definitely capitalized on the drug problem, the gang problem and national headlines of illegals killing Americans (after being deported many times). This is politics. This is a candidate firing up a base.

Now, if you read a lot of CNN, you might think that "We're getting a lot of drug dealers and gang members from Mexico; They're not sending us their best and brightest" is anti-Latino. It's not.

"Today's ruling shows that courts across the country agree that Trump's termination of DACA was not just immoral, but unlawful as well," said Karen Tumlin of the National Immigration Law Center.

So the Justice System is also the Morality Police, now? Oh yeah, Federalist Papers Essay #82 regarding the authority of the judicial systems. I'll have to refresh myself up on the morality section.

When you have judges who legislate morality from the bench, your judicial system is screwed. They are supposed to be partial only to the Constitution.

The Justice Department said it maintains that the administration acted "within its lawful authority" in deciding to end DACA and will "vigorously defend this position."Just to recap, the government has very few purposes in our life. It's purpose is to defend Life, Liberty, and Property.

If the President decides that droves of foreign nationals, who don't share our western ideals of liberty and freedom, are a threat to "Life, Liberty, and Property", then it's incumbent upon his oath of office to make that decision.

This week the Supreme Court is set to meet behind closed doors to discuss whether to take up the Trump administration's appeal of the related case.

Spoiler Alert: They Won't.

​The Supreme Court is very selective on which cases it takes. And when it does take a case of national importance, you will be sure that the legal argument examined will be some tiny nuance within the case, not the hallmark of the case itself.

With obstructionist judges who act upon partisan lines, the future is bleak for the Trump Administration.

If you feel very passionate about DACA, let's rally support and create the law, legally.

I eagerly combed through that report, which (predictably) hadHong KongandSingaporeas the top two jurisdictions. I was glad to see that the United States climbed to #11.

The good news is that America had droppedas low as #18, so we’ve been improving the past few years.

The bad news is that the U.S. used to bea top-5 countryin the 1980s and 1990s.

But let’s set aside America’s economic ranking and deal with a different question. I’m frequently asked why European nations with big welfare states still seem like nice places.

My answer is that they are nice places. Yes, they get terrible scores on fiscal policy, but theytend to be very pro-market in areas like trade, monetary policy, regulation, and rule of law. So they almost always rank in the top-third for economic freedom.

Moreover, there’s more to life than economics. Most European nations also are nice places because they arecivilizedand tolerant. For instance, check out the newly releasedHuman Freedom Index, which measures both economic liberty and personal liberty. As you can see,Switzerlandis ranked #1 and Europe is home to 12 of the top 16 nations.

And when you check out nations at the bottom, you won’t find a single European country.

Instead, you find nations likeVenezuelaandZimbabwe. Indeed, the lowest-ranked Western European country is Greece, which is ranked #60 and just missed being in the top-third of countries.

Having now engaged in the unusual experience of defending Europe, let’s take a quick look at the score for the United States.

As you can see, America’s #17 ranking is a function of our position for economic freedom (#11) and our position for personal freedom (#24).

For what it’s worth, America’s worst score is for “civil justice,” which basically measuresrule of law. It’s embarrassing that we’re weak in that category, but notoverly surprising.

Anyhow, here’s how the U.S. score has changed over time.

Let’s close with a few random observations.

Other nations also improved, not just the United States. Among advanced nations, Singapore jumped 16 spots and is now tied for #18. There were also double-digit increases for Suriname (up 14 spots, to #56), Cambodia (up 16 spots, to #58), and Botswana (up 22 spots, to #63). The biggest increase was Swaziland, which jumped 25 spots to #91, though it’s worth pointing out that it’s easier to make big jumps for nations with lower initial rankings.

Now let’s look at nations moving in the wrong direction. Among developed nations,Canadadropped 7 spots to #11. Still a very good score, but a very bad trend. It’s also unfortunate to see Poland drop 10 spots, to #32. Looking at developing nations, Brunei Darussalam plummeted an astounding 52 spots, down to #115, followed by Tajikistan, which fell 46 spots to #118. Brazil is alsoworth highlighting, since it plunged 23 spots to #120.

P.S. I don’t know if Moldova,Ukraine, and Russiacount as European countries or Asian nations, but they all rank in the bottom half. In any event, they’re not Western European nations.

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

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I can't help it: I just have to say something about the "Tide Pod Challenge."

Look at all of those lawmakers prancing around in front of the cameras proclaiming that Proctor & Gamble (the company that makes Tide) is at fault because their Pods look too much like candy. Seriously?

Think about that for a moment...

(1) We literally have lawmakers who think that the government should be involved in pressuring or even forcing companies to make their laundry detergents look a certain way. Kim Jong-un and Josef Stalin would be proud.

(2) This is part of the blame-corporate-America-first crowd. Only people who live at the very top of the proverbial ivory tower--not just in it but on the very top floor--could believe that the Tide Pod Challenge is linked to a corporation's desire for profit. "Hey, marketing guys, I have a great idea for profit: How can we convince people to eat our laundry detergent so as to sell a few more of these?" Ridiculous. (Plus, since when did "profit" become a dirty word in this country? In an attempt to profit, I may found my own company one day and see no need to apologize for that. Even so, the hypocrisy of rich politicians who profit handsomely from their offices while criticizing others' market-based profits isn't lost on me.)

(3) We have lawmakers who seem to be trying to score political points from the deaths of people who've eaten detergent.

(4) The implications of what these lawmakers are saying is really preposterous when you think about it. By default, they're arguing that some seemingly normal people who are in their teens and even early 20's cannot help eating poisons if those poisons look like candy. I mean, seriously, how can we expect teens to know that they shouldn't eat soap when that soap just looks so darn delicious? ("Hey, honey, before we head out on vacation, I just want to make sure that you put the antifreeze where the dog can't get into it--oh, and that you put the Tide Pods where little Johnny can't get into them.")

I must consider myself fortunate, I suppose; I don't know any otherwise-normal/healthy 20-year-old people who gobble up everything that's colorful out of a mistaken belief that they are getting a yummy piece of candy. One wonders how these people survived exposure to Crayons in kindergarten. If this describes you, then you have bigger problems and should probably refer to the image above.

I mean, seriously, don't eat soap.

​I'm pretty sure that that isn't rocket science and am equally sure that, in any event, people who eat detergent "candy" don't have future careers in rocket science--nor should they. The last thing an astronaut needs to hear before blasting off into space is that his mission controller was the 2017 runner-up in the Tide Pod Challenge.

The audio book makes it all the more real since you get to hear her voice delivering the spikes of justification into your mind.

If reading this book, or listening to it, is difficult, then you have every reason to feel good about yourself.

Unfortunately, "What Happened" is not a book about Clinton's loss to Trump.

"What Happened" is a book about why YOU, true believer in the Democratic Party, should take hope and not abandon the cause. If you aren't already a registered Democrat, "What Happened" was not written for you.

Those who are immediately engaged by this work will be those who have very similar thinking to Clinton. She wastes no time in identifying her audience. The appeals to emotion start in the Introduction.

I'm only about halfway in, but there is very little in terms of a 'positive message' so far. What should people that loved Hillary do in their defeat? The message is, "Work harder. Chin up and believe in the cause. The other side is evil, so you will win by being righteous. Believe in your side."

Left unanswered is the fact that no real solutions are yet offered. Nothing about what being righteous actually is. Nothing about what values should be promoted. Nothing but "here is evil, we failed to counter it, we will try harder! YOU need to try harder!"

Every position Hillary backed is assumed to be good. Every opposition to her is assumed to be vile. (PLOT TWIST: The Republicans use this same partisan trick. It's only the 'other side' that is evil)
​

Still, it is worth the listen. You can really hear Hillary's self portrait come across in a way that justifies everything she did and everything she would have done if she was elected.

When you realize that she is just another politician, painted in true Bastiat style, you can see her true view of this world:

She knows better than we do. We are clay. She will mold us. Then we will all rise through her leadership.

"What Happened" is a book written for those who already believe in Hillary's vision of the world. This book was written to hold together the Democratic Party power base after a crushing blow. I highly recommend reading it to understand the mind of those who seek power.

Just make sure you have your own world view screwed on tight while you read it. Those who lean toward empathy, those who believe we can make a world completely free of suffering will be easily persuaded by "What Happened."

What Happened is a huge appeal to emotion, and what is commonly believed to be 'right' at the time. And it is right to be so! There is no logical argument to be won on this side. Only those who have been fooled into believing that quick government fixes can lead to prosperity for all, will by in. There are plenty who will readily do so.

You, however, know so much more. You know morality isn't just for those who are living today. Morality must be for us, and for those who will come after us.

They will tell you that morality is for just those who are alive now. They will tell you that you must advocate only for the living. They will tell you that those who suffer now weigh more than those who will suffer ten fold in the future. Her message and her philosophy deeply contrast with my message of Limited Government. Unfortunately, the popularity of Bernie Sanders has brought socialism and 'big government' solutions back into vogue.

Our children will pay for the success of that philosophy. Their quality of life will be less due to our greediness. One life goal of mine is that I will be able to face my children in the future and tell them that I did everything in my power to reject these increases in debt even if it meant I didn't get a tax cut.
​I may write more about this book once I complete it. Maybe not.

If Republicans in the Senate muster enough votes to pass the two-year spending bill (likely) and if Republicans in the House muster enough votes to pass the bill (unclear) and if Republican President Donald Trump signs it (likely), then something spectacular will happen. If this bill passes and is signed, then we'll have to take on only $300 billion in additional debt.

Wait, that's $300 billion in addition to the $1 trillion we were already going to borrow...

Oh, and that $1 trillion is up from almost $600 billion borrowed last year...

That's not all: That $600 billion was on top of the $20.1 trillion we had already borrowed...

Not only is the overall size of our debt unconscionable, but also our deficits are trending higher, not lower. In 2015, our borrowing hit multi-year lows; that year, we took on an additional $438 billion in debt. In 2016, we took on $585 billion. In 2017, we took on $666 billion. In 2018, we're expected to take on $1 trillion. This is the wrong direction.

Our budget deficits had fallen dramatically nearly every year from 2010 to 2015 and then started heading back up again after that. They now appear to be not only continuing into the red; they're accelerating into the red.

Right now our total government debt stands at nearly $20.7 trillion. Latest estimates on the size of our GDP (our economy) are around $19.7 trillion. This means that our debt-to-GDP ratio is in the neighborhood of 105%. In other words, our government could seize every ounce of value added by our economy to the point that we no longer had an economy at all and use 100% of the proceeds to pay down our debt. After doing so, we'd still be left with a staggering $1 trillion in debt.

There is broad consensus now--among both liberal and conservative groups--that our debt will continue to grow at a faster rate than our economy will grow. At some point in the next few years when our next recession hits, it'll grow even faster.

Consider this. Interest on our debt alone (never mind repaying principal) is now the government's fifth-largest expense item. It also happens to be one of the fastest growing and the only one that's truly non-discretionary. (Democrats want us to believe that entitlement and welfare spending are non-discretionary, but they actually aren't.)

As it grows, the federal government's spending will start crowding out private sector investment and spending. The interest account itself will begin to crowd out other items in the government's budget. Republicans, this means that the military's budget will have to start shrinking. Democrats, this means that welfare and entitlement budgets will have to start shrinking. Everyone, this means that tax rates will have to rise.

All the while, government borrowing costs will continue to rise. We hear this all the time. What we don't hear all the time is that private borrowing costs--yes, for you and me--will rise as well. In a worst-case scenario, which is an avoidable government default, catastrophic economic collapse will ensue for everyone from Wall Street to Main Street. No one would escape the effects of it; it would actually be felt around the globe and back again.

I realize as I write this that, inevitably, someone will respond blaming Democrats and, I suspect, mentioning Obama's spending. In order to head that off, I want to point out one statistic. From 1981--when the debt-to-GDP ratio bottomed out--to 2018, we've had four Republican Presidents and two Democratic ones. Of the Republicans, all four increased our national debt. Of the Democrats, one (Obama) increased it, and one (Clinton) became one of the very few Presidents to actually run a surplus and pay off some of our debt. All told, Democrats increased our debt-to-GDP ratio by around 27 percentage points. Republicans increased our debt-to-GDP ration by, so far, 44 percentage points, and this looks set to increase much more by 2020.

Some will counter by saying, yes, but Republicans were in charge in Congress when Clinton ran his surpluses, and Congress is actually in charge of spending. This is true--just like it's true that Republicans were in charge of Congress during most of the Obama years when our deficits exploded. They're in control of Congress now with our deficits exploding even more.

By 2020, Republicans will have been in control of the White House for four years and in control of Congress for, at a minimum, two of those years. They will have, solely, increased the national debt by more than $3 trillion during that short time.

The greatest deception being perpetrated against the American people right now isn't Democratic spending. The Democrats are liberal spenders to be sure, but they are honest about that. They don't claim to be conservative spenders. Republicans, on the other hand, have been campaigning for decades on "reigning in spending" and on "living within our means." This is propaganda of the highest order, and, shockingly, many buy into it. While we've been campaigning on "getting spending under control" and "taking a sharp knife to the budget," we've actually been setting aside our knives and just letting the patient bleed out. The truth of the matter is that we Republicans have been absolutely horrible for the government's financial position.

Why am I saying all of this? Simple: It's time to hold Republicans to account. It's time for Republicans to stop campaigning on conservatism before turning around and enacting such liberal spending that even liberals are shocked. If you're a Republican, then force Republicans to be conservative. Write to them. Call them. Annoy them. Harass them at their townhalls. Plus, they care about money and votes more than they care about anything else. Do not donate to a liberal-spending Republican. Do not vote for a liberal-spending Republican.

It's time to send them a message: You said that you'd get our fiscal house in order. Do it. When someone tells you that he can fix a problem, it isn't too much to ask to have him at least not make it any worse. If he does, then he's probably not the right person for the job. Making a problem worse because you know you'll be long gone before people have to pay for it is a form of moral bankruptcy.

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It might come as a surprise to you, but once people believe in their partisan ways, whether Republican or Democrat, they are not easily swayed.

The effort it takes to overcome your personal confirmation bias is difficult. It's a lot easier to say the other team is EVIL and your team is always good. It's simple to call attention to missteps by the Other Side while four or eight years later making similar excuses for Your Side.

When confronted with ideas that you knowjust can't be true, you experience something called 'cognitive dissonance', a mental discomfort when you realize you might be holding onto two contradictory views.

The fact that so many people never receive opposing views and appreciate the reasons others would hold those views is why we experience the toxic online atmosphere where no real ideas get proposed.
​

Let's take the classic Man on the Street example.

I loved these videos whenever they painted Republicans against speech they thought was Obama’s (it was Bush’s) and I like this new version as well. It clearly articulates that people will value partisanship over independent critical thought.

What's the biggest shame in watching people embarrass themselves? It's not that they've inaccurately credited quotes from one major party to another.
​
No, the real shame in it all is that instead of real, genuine critical analysis of the President, we get lazy vomiting of old one-liners we get from the media talking points.

Let’s hate the President for continuing drone wars and spending the National Debt and our kids into oblivion, both actual immoralities. Instead on social media we see remarks about the color of his skin (ironically enough, it's orange, but these are the same people that say we should talk about the color of people's skin) or his funny hair or his bumbling baboonish nature.

Where's the progress in that?

Sure, you can say he's the anti-Christ, but Republicans said the same thing about President Obama.

​"He's a literal embodiment of the worst parts of human nature and he doesn't actually care about the United States or its citizens". Who said that? Democrats are saying it now, Republicans said it during the Obama years.

Eventually, and this might not happen for another 50 years of your life, you'll end up hating ALL of them.
​

I hate all of them.

​So I refuse to fall into this category of “no no no you have to ESPECIALLY hate Trump! Come over here and loudly proclaim how much you hate Trump with us!"

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The NYPD got a whopping 1,526 requests from the feds to detain immigrants in President Trump’s first year in office — and rejected them all, officials said Wednesday.​

ICE recently arrested nine people in New York who were in the country illegally and released by the NYPD despite active detainers and pending criminal charges, the agency wrote.

TheNY Daily News Reportsthat every single request from the feds to detain illegal immigrants was denied last year.

If we can view this objectively, regardless of your thoughts on illegal immigration, it's illegal to be in this country without citizenship or an appropriate via. It's the law.

What is Law Enforcement's duty in this case? If it's illegal, Law Enforcement should enforce the law. If we actually see deportations increasing and 'hard-working families getting torn apart' as the rhetoric goes, then people will start to get angry. If people get angry enough, we'll start demanding the laws are changed.

The larger problem is that we have institutions who don't do their job.

The Sheriff or Police Department will direct law enforcement to release an immigrant when it determines the suspect is in the country illegally. This unfortunately brings subjectivity into the executive powers of Law Enforcement. If they are going to be 'law enforcers' there should be no subjectivity, that is the court's job; To be subjective and weigh evidence.

So what's going on in New York?

in this case, ignoring the detain requests is attributable to someone in the Police Department arguing that 'illegals are humans and it's immoral to do turn them over, they may be deported'. I don't disagree with this morality, but as previously noted, this is not the executive's job to weigh morality, it's the judicial branch's job.

My question is this. If law enforcement is going to take that stance, why don't they don't also take that same stance for other victim-less crimes like braiding hair without a license, just 'slightly' rolling through a stop sign, possession of an ounce of pot, etc.

It would seem that the same subjectivity which was introduced in the previous example would also lend to similar treatment for victim-less crimes which occur in your city.

Methinks the difference in the two cases involves A) the future of the politically-leftist voting class at stake in the former and B) a population that can be extorted for more money to feed ever-increasing budgets in the latter.

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Doesn't it seem rather silly that, 11 years after the last telegram was sent, the industry is just NOW starting to see some deregulation?

Most people alive in America today have probably never had the experience of sending a telegram. There are a host of reasons for this, the main one being that the telegram stopped being fashionable decades ago as burgeoning technology replaced its use in the modern world. The very last Western Union telegram was sent 11 years ago.

Over a decade too late, the FCC has finally decided to end burdensome regulations that stifled telegraph technology. As Reuters reported:

AT&T Inc, originally known as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, in 2013 lamented the FCC’s failure to formally stop enforcing some telegraph rules.

‘Regulations have a tendency to persist long after they outlived any usefulness and it takes real focus and effort to ultimately remove them from the books even when everyone agrees that it is the common sense thing to do,’ the company said.”

Regulations are far easier to create than they are to dismantle. As Milton Friedman said, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” Yet lately, there has been an undeniable trend of repealing these types of regulations, the likes of which America hasn’t seen since the Reagan Administration. And in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, this current regulatory rollback is due largely to President Donald Trump.

Regulations are far easier to create than they are to dismantle.

Setting a New Record

Ronald Reagan left many legacies during his duration in the White House. And while many were less than praiseworthy—the War on Drugs springs to mind—he did accomplish some deregulation.

In fact, during the Reagan presidency, both the Federal Register and federal regulations decreased by more than one-third. And as impressive as this record surely was, it’s already been broken by Donald Trump.

Upon taking office, Donald Trump signed an executive order telling federal agencies that they must cut two existing regulations for each new regulation proposed. Contained within this executive order was the demand that each federal agency create a task force with the explicit purpose of finding regulations worth slashing. This act was intended to help the newly sworn-in president reach his promise of cutting 70 percent of all federal regulations.

While the talk of regulatory cuts is typical red meat rhetoric, the left was obviously less than pleased with this executive order. A coalition of left-leaning organizations even joined together in February and sued Trump on the grounds that his executive order would potentially “block or force the repeal of regulations needed to protect health, safety, and the environment, across a broad range of topics – from automobile safety, to occupational health, to air pollution, to endangered species.” But the lawsuit did not scare Trump away from his objective.

When Obama had been in office as long as Trump currently has, regulations were 28 percent higher. But since taking office, Trump has repealed hundreds of these regulations.

When Obama had been in office as long as Trump currently has, regulations were 28 percent higher.

And when it comes to regulations in general, the score speaks for itself. During the same point of time of their respective presidencies, Obama’s regulatory tally was at 1,737 while Trump’s is 1,241. And while Reagan’s own regulatory cuts were admirable, they still don’t compare with Trump’s if you judge them by the same timeframe.

Earlier this October, Trump announced his plans to further cut taxes along with red tape that negatively impacts both businesses and consumers. According toCEI,the current level of federal regulatory burdens have amounted to nearly $2 trillion. And while business owners may pay the initial costs, it will inevitably trickle down to the consumer. When overhead costs are raised on entrepreneurs, that cost must must be made up for somewhere. And as CEI also estimates, these hidden costs can account for about $15,000 per household in any given year.

As the 2017 fiscal year came to a close this month, the White House also released its initiative to cut more red tape to jumpstart the economy. Obviously, the “do nothing” method is a far cry from Obama’s overbearing regulatory intervention.

However, while this rhetoric is pleasing to much of the American public, which is fed up after almost a decade of a stagnating economy, Congress has yet to act on any substantial reform in either the House or the Senate.

Still, the White House has continued its efforts to encourage regulatory relief by pushing for three specific reform efforts, listed by CEI’s Clyde Wayne Crews as follows:

A sweeping Reorganization Executive Orderthat requires the Office of Management and Budget to submit a plan aimed at streamlining and reducing the size of the administrative state generally. This plan will set the tone for Trump’s budget proposal next year.

Amemorandumfrom the new Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) administrator Neomi Rao directing agencies, for the first time as far as I can tell, to propose an overall incremental regulatory cost allowance for the agency in the new edition of their “Unified Agenda” on regulations. This report will appear in the fall. Prior editions, since the 1980s, would label rules as “economically significant,” but never has there been such a “regulatory budget.” Rao says, “OMB expects that each agency willpropose a net reductionin total incremental regulatory costs for FY 2018.”

But what is, perhaps most interesting is how silent the media has been. Usually, the media doesn't miss an opportunity to criticize the president, making it all the more strange that these massive regulation rollbacks have managed to slip under the radar.

The Importance of Economic Liberty

Without economic liberty there can be no general freedom.

Just as it is important to give credit where credit is due, it is also important to acknowledge that excelling in one area does not negate one’s terrible behavior in another. The appointment of Jeff Sessions by itself is enough of a reason to be wary of Trump. Especially given Sessions’ obsession with reigniting the drug war in a time whenpublic opinionis overwhelmingly trending in the opposite direction. Though in many capacities this makes one of Trump’s weak points similar to Reagan’s.

And the Sessions issue is just one of many. Diplomacy also appears to be one of Trump’s weak points. Taunting a world leader who is threatening to use nuclear arms against your country may not be the wisest idea, but that hasn’t stopped Trump from referring to Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” at the height of tensions. And in general, President Trump’s hawkish foreign policy has made a mockery of candidate Trump’s non-interventionist rhetoric.

But increasing economic freedom is no small feat. If there is any doubt of this, just look how long it took to deregulate the telegraph industry. Without economic liberty there can be no general freedom, which is precisely why Trump’s pushback against the regulatory state is so important.

Our modern economy has no doubt been burdened by regulations that have held back the market and prevented others from even entering the workforce. So as hard as Trump is to stomach most of the time, these regulatory scale-backs are cause for celebration.

I'm no fan of Sarah Silverman (politically) and tend to think her humor as a standup comedian relies too heavily on being blunt and crass. But when people do great things, you encourage it and spread that message.

Someone on Twitter responded to her in a way that was crude and, unfortunately, too expected these days on social media.

Instead of blocking the guy or retorting with some online snark along the lines of "Nice Twitter Account you have there, must be nice to have 14 followers" or "Typical White cis-male response, yo!", Silverman looked into the guys timeline and responded with empathy. The back and forth looks like this: